


Skin of the Night

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Off By Heart [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - High School, Character Death, Drug Dealing, M/M, Prostitution, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23117308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: The day you turn eighteen, your father picks a fight in the wrong bar and ends up bleeding out on the floor, his fingers grasping at broken pieces of glass.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Off By Heart [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661665





	Skin of the Night

The day you turn eighteen, your father picks a fight in the wrong bar and ends up bleeding out on the floor, his fingers grasping at broken pieces of glass. You’re not sure what to say when you get the call, but you hold Sammy tight enough to you that you can’t breathe, your fists in his jacket, his tears on your neck. Sammy cries himself to sleep. You can’t stop touching Castiel.

He never loved you as much as you loved him, you tell Castiel, your mouth fitting against the slope of his jaw. His nails are digging into your back, drawing blood.

He never told you that he loved you or Sam after your mother died, you say. He never cared, your teeth biting the rise of Castiel’s collarbone. Castiel swallowing pill after pill, his fingers against your mouth, trying to get you to take at least one.

“Open up,” he says. His eyes are bloodshot, he hasn’t slept in days.

“Here comes the airplane,” he says.

He never let you remember her, you say, kissing Castiel’s mouth again and again and again, harder and faster, then soft and slow. He never let you hold on to her the way you always wanted to, you say. Castiel has a pocket full of pills, a mirror full of cocaine, you’re not exactly sure why he needs the weed anymore.

“Be a good boy,” he says, pills between his fingers, trying to slide them into your palm. “Take your medicine,” he says.

He never wanted you around after your mother died, you say. You’re rocking hard against Castiel, his naked skin feels soft on yours. He never wanted to take care of you or Sam without her, you say. Castiel is unbuttoning your jeans with drugs between his lips, careful not to swallow yet, careful not to take what’s yours.

“Time to feel good, baby,” he says, wrapping his palm thick around you.

He never touched you the way you wanted him to, you say. Castiel slips his tongue into your mouth and you can taste the bitter burst of pharmaceuticals. You’re not exactly sure who you’re talking about now.

“Time to forget,” Castiel says, and the world grows dark and small with pleasure.

***

You get custody of Sammy, but only because it’s legal and there’s no room left in any group home, there’s nobody in the foster care system who wants to do the paperwork. You get the house, but only because it’s paid off after the life insurance check goes through. Your father was always so thoughtful, you tell Castiel, your eyes red rimmed, but not from crying. He clucks his tongue like he knows what you mean, his face pale, his eyes bright.

The day you move back in, Castiel comes with, bringing over his clothes, his books and CDs. You don’t ask if he’s told his parents, he doesn’t tell you how long he’s staying. Either way, you’re not sure if you care that much. Either way, he’s there as if he’s always belonged.

Sammy missed his old room, but you stand small in yours, running your hand over the bedpost, the empty salt can on your desk. There’s nothing here that you couldn’t live without, nothing here that you missed when you were at Castiel’s.

A woman comes by your father’s house a few times to check on Sammy, to see if he’s alright here with you, with the ghost of your father around every corner. She’s short and round and her glasses cover most of her face. She brings stacks of papers and holds them to her chest like a shield.

You’ve taken care of Sammy since your mother died, you tell her. She writes messages in cursive on her folders, she scans the rooms of the house, critical, impassive. Your father was nothing but a paycheck, really, you tell her. She’s probably heard all this before.

You don’t tell her about the drugs, but she doesn’t seem to care, anyway.

“He needs to go to school,” she says, making her way around the banister upstairs, stepping around Castiel’s shirt on the floor. Sammy makes a face behind her back, and you try not to laugh. “He needs to get an education.”

Unlike you, she doesn’t say.

“Sure,” you tell her, picking up the broken toys scattered around the hope chest and slipping them into your pockets. “School every week.”

“He needs three meals a day,” she says, sliding a finger over the bathroom sink, inspecting it for dirt. “I can get you paperwork for food stamps.”

“Oh,” you say. Castiel rolls his eyes.

You say, “No, thanks, I don’t think we’ll need it.”

“You’ll have to get a job,” she says, picking up a corner of Sammy’s comforter with her pen, peering underneath. “You’ll need a stable income to pay for his necessities.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” you say. Castiel is behind you, snickering.

She looks at you through her glasses. “There must be something open at the local grocery store or pizza place.” She arches an eyebrow. “Something,” she says.

“Yeah,” you say. “Right.” Your hands are curling into the shape of fists.

“Well, good luck then,” she says. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

***

The first time you ever have to tell somebody you’re an orphan, well, you just can’t stop laughing.

The second time, you almost don’t even make it to the bathroom before you vomit.

***

When you dream, you don’t dream of your father. Castiel will hold you until you stop shaking, but you can’t tell him through your chattering teeth that it wasn’t your father, it wasn’t your mother. There’s no shadowed demon standing over your bed at night, taking away the things you love, even when you want to think so, to scream and shout and wrap your fists around whatever you don’t believe anymore, even when you’d rather there was, just so somebody could fucking pay for this. Castiel sliding his hands up and down your sweat-slicked skin, you can’t tell him you were dreaming about fire or blood or the press of bruises that have collected around your wrists and hips, even if you wanted to. Even if it would be easier.

When you dream, you dream of blood. It’s not your own, but it might as well be, your thumb smearing red on his dream mouth, on his dream cheek. He calls out your name when he chokes, when he coughs, your fingers in his hair, smoothing it down feather soft. He cries, and you feel the swell of ache in your chest moving up your throat, bubbling out of your mouth in careful sobs. He won’t blame you, but that’s only because he never has. His tiny hands fisted in your shirt, he’ll never believe you did anything wrong, he’ll never believe you did anything other than your best.

When you dream, you don’t dream about your parents, dead, but not forgotten, their faces smooth on the backs of your eyelids.

When you dream, you dream of Sam.

***

Castiel has a friend who has a friend that can hook you up with something stronger, something more lucrative. Castiel kisses you soft and slow until you relent. You both know that you’d never make it playing straight, you both know that you could never have another job, no matter what Child Protective Services seems to think. At least if you do this, Castiel tells you, his mouth tickling its way up your neck, at least if you get into something harder, well, maybe Sammy could go to college.

Maybe Sammy could have everything he wants.

You’re not sure when he started caring more for your brother, but you know that he’s right.

Castiel’s friend of a friend is tall and dark-skinned. His name is Marcus and he wears dark clothes and dark sunglasses and blows curls of smoke through his lips from a rolled blunt in his hand. Castiel had told you that he’s part of some gang, but he never told you which one. There are tattoos running down the length of his arms, and tattoos circling around his face, and when he meets you at the door, there’s a gun in his hand.

“Dean,” the friend of a friend says, and you nod. He makes a motion for you to come in, and you squeeze by him through the doorway, the gun sliding cold on your skin. He looks to make sure nobody’s following you, then tilts his head at the guys waiting inside.

They press you up against the wall and you inhale sharply, heartbeat throbbing fast in your throat. One guy slides his hands over your clothes and you want to say, “Hey, not for free,” but your mouth won’t move to let it out. They’re just checking for weapons anyway, just like Castiel had told you they would. You didn’t ask him where he had met these guys, you didn’t ask him how he knew them, why he knew them, but maybe you should have.

Marcus steps close to you once they’re done. “Come on to the back,” he says. The friend of a friend is only the doorman, Castiel had told you, brushing kisses along the back of your neck. The friend of a friend isn’t the guy in charge.

The man in back is tall and muscled and has just as many tattoos as the rest of the guys. He looks at you through the haze of cigar smoke and his eyes are bright, bright blue. He has a jagged scar on his face, raised and livid white and piercing the length of his cheek. He has a gun on the table in front of him, pointing right at you.

“This is Dean Winchester, the guy I was telling you about,” Marcus says, and pushes you closer to the other man.

The man nods his head and takes a strong pull on his cigar. “I heard you were looking to get into more serious business.” His voice is deep, but not whiskey-laden like your father’s used to be. Not gravelly like your father’s used to be.

You shrug, but don‘t break eye contact. “I figured it was a good time to start.”

The man laughs, throaty and amused, and smiles up at you from where he’s sitting. “You’re funny, kid.” He makes a motion to one of the guys behind you and Marcus places a cellophane wrapped brick on the table. You look at it like you’ve never seen one before. You look at it like you don’t know what to do with it.

“Want something else?” the man says, his fingers close enough to the gun they’re almost touching. “Something a little softer?” His voice is amused, but his eyes are hard.

“No,” you say. And then you grit your teeth, trying so hard to staunch the rising taste of bile in your mouth. “No, this is good.”

The man tells you to try it out for a week or however long it takes you to package it and sell it and when he stands up to give it to you, he slides a warm hand into yours and pulls you close, his grip tight and then tighter, his mouth against your ear. “This is a loan, kid,” he says, his voice low and hard. “That means I expect money back from this.” His hand squeezing yours, ready to break it.

“Yes,“ you say.

“Of course,” you say. Of course.

And then he’s sliding back with a smile. “Good luck.”

When they let you out of the warehouse, when you’ve driven at least a mile away, you pull over to the side of the road and you breathe through your mouth until your heartbeat is normal again, until your fingers have stopped shaking. This is never how you wanted things to turn out. He brick tucked safely into the spare tire in back, this is never how you wanted your life or Sam’s life to go.

Castiel had said, “Do this for Sam,” his mouth moving down and down and down, his teeth light and teasing against your skin.

Castiel had said, “Do this for me.”

***

The day your father dies in a bar fight, cold and broken and bleeding out on the dirty, foreign floor, the day you turn eighteen, the police officer who calls your cell phone, the police officer who tells you, he asks you to come down to the morgue to identify your father‘s body. Castiel is staring up at you from bed, bleary-eyed and high, and you’re sitting up against the backboard and you’re high and your voice is strangely even.

Sammy is asleep in his room. Castiel’s parents are on another trip for work, somewhere in Europe maybe, and you’re still living in his room, his sweat-slick skin pressed to yours. This isn’t working out, but you have nowhere else to go. This isn’t working out, but you only have him.

Castiel says, “What is it?” And his voice is obscenely loud and you’re paranoid that they can hear him over the phone, can hear his slurred words, can hear that he’s high.

“Shh,” you say, your hand over the receiver, and the officer on the other end is asking your for your name and for your address and for your date of birth. The officer on the other end is telling you how this will work, identifying your father’s rotting corpse, putting a name to his broken face.

You agree to meet the next day, your voice still even, but soft, your hands shaking so hard Castiel has to hold them tight to get them to stop. You agree to meet, to see your father’s body, and then you hang up, clicking the phone closed and placing it on the nightstand.

Castiel says, “What is it, baby?” His mouth on your shoulder, his pressed lips leaving one, two, three kisses.

Castiel says, “What’s wrong?”

And you say, “My father’s dead.”

And then you smile.


End file.
